Morning journal and courier., 1887-12-19
THE PURIrANs AND PILGRIMS.

ing Influence. |
 Yesterday Rev. Dr. Twitehell. pastor of l the Dwight Place church, delivered 8 most excellent sermon on the t'Puritans and Pill grims" He chose them as his subject be- cause to-day is Forefathers' day, as it was on December 20th that the Pilgrims first landed in this country At the morning service he told of their history in this country and in the evening of their coming to America.
 Revelations vii, IA: "These are they which come out of great tribulations." This was his text. Following is synopsis:
 This passage is descriptive of the martyrs, and may properly apply to the Puritans and Pilgrims; for few in the history of the ages ever suffered more for their faith than did these men and women who founded the in stitutions and secured the religious liberties of our land In our study of the Puritans and Pilgrim fathers we are obliged to begin
 with the opening of the sixteenth century. A company of as noble men and women as ever planted institutions on the face of the
 earth, or ever migrated from the homes of
 their fathers, then began to struggle for
 purer faith and purer life.
 The papal church for centuries had been a
 political organization. Any religious refor-
 nation must therefore be political as well
 religious. Luther and Calvin and others ap-
 peared and began to teach more liberal ideas
 and for a while were unmolested by the gov~
 ernment. Ere long national churches were
 organized independent of Rome, and in some
 sense independent of each other.
 The church, however, was in political bon dage There could be no convocation of the
 clergy without the Kings command. As a body the national church would be loyal to the government, but many in that church would not submit to such surveillance. Finally, discovering the inevitable bent of reform, the court arose and cast off the very men whom it had patronized and put in po sitions of power They thus became non- cenformists, i. G., refused allegiance to the established church, and they and their fol- lowers in 1564 were given the epithet of stPuritans." This reproachful term was first applied to the few who demanded purer worship and life, but later it was applied to all Christians who sought wider separation | from the papal church than was allowed by | the Church of England. The Puritans were l not dissenters, nor were they originally con- gregationalists. They were simply non-con- forming members of the Church of England, being bitterly opposed to certain ceremonies | For time these Puritans were tolerated, but in 1865 Queen Elizabeth issued royal edict demanding strict observance of all the ! forms and ceremonies of the established church. There were in London ninety-eight | clergymen who were supported by the gov ernment. Nearly half of them refused COIL | formity and were deposed. But their people loved and honored them and they said, ''If l these men cannot preach to us no man shall. :" So the different congregations began to as semble by themselves for worship in their | own way Here was the beginning of the | dissenting church and here the real origin of ! Congregationalism.
 Of course the government could not allow | this without confessing itself outWitted and so proceedings were instituted to break up | these religious gatherings. It was then and | there that the real struggle began and cul- \ minated in the organization of ''Separatist churches" which repudiated all civil author ity.
 | In 1884, company of A men, with all the | civil officers at their command, at the com | mand of the Queen proceeded against these | Separatist churches. The power of great | national church organization was combined | against few. Scores of the Non-conform- \ ists were imprisoned.
 Up to 1592 the Paritans for the twenty ' five years in which they had been pastorless, | had never celebrated the Lords supper, nor ! had their children, born in those years, been | baptized. Then church was organized, a pastor chosen and ordained, and the sacra- ! ments administered. The news of this bold | movement reached those in prison and they petitioned for a speedy trial CT be bailed out. Or if neither could be granted, for the privilege of being imprisoned together. No | heed whatever was given it. Another mem- orial was addressed to the court in which these suffering men cried out for justice, but all was unavsiling. With patience worthy the followers of him who endured for us these Puritans had borne imprisonment and prosecutions, mutilations and even death. Browne and Greene had been apprehended, l committed to the dungeon at Newgate and had been hung for organizing churches and conducting religious worship in opposition to the Queens command. Wi the rope around their necks these martyrs had con- fessed unfaltering loyalty to the Queen re- garding all save their Christian faith. What the Puritans demanded was that the laws of the Lord should protect them against the tyranny of the church. The laws, how ever, left them at the mercy of the church. England should have interposed, The de- mand of these persecuted Puritans was a just and righteous demand, especially after such assertions of loyalty to the government as we have noted. The whole bent of civil author ity, however, was toward a more absolute despotism. Parliament soon passed aR act to
 retain the Queens subjects in obedience to
 the church of England, and various penalties
 were made. Voluntary exile was prohibited
 This was the policy of the court. Do you
 wonder that men were converted into 'sepa- rationists'a and that these 'separationists' or Puritan, as they were called, finally became Pilgrims: founding a new faith and purity somewhere where they could give scope to conscience, and where they could enjoy freedom in their religious worship? Consid- ering the character of these Puritans Eng lands policy must make Pilgrims of them;
 and it did. The statute of banishment and
 forfeiture was first employed against the
 church in London. John Robinson was the
 pastor of the church. Many of his people
 had been in jail for listening in behalf of
 Christian liberty. He had known the dis
 grace of dungeon cell. Many leaders and
 pr1vate members had perished for their faiths. The reign of James I, after the 40
 years of Elizabeth's reign, was equally intole- rant to non-conformists.
 It now became great question with these fPuritsns" how long they should endure such sufferings. To live in England was to live with the dungeon and the gallows in sight To leave England would be to risk the very thing they would avert. They knew of reli- gious freedom in Holland and hither many escaped, while more attempting to escape were arrested and imprisoned. At last these
 long persecuted men began to look on volun=
 ta1y exile as their only refuge. This could
 be accomplished only by secret methods,
 which were hazardous.
 In one attempt to get away the captain, @
 villain, betrayed them and they were impris-
 oned. The next time they made arrangements
 with Dutch captain. The gathering of the
 Puritans in place together attracted atten-
 tion. Word was sent to persons of authority
 and one of the ships boats was conveying
 load from the barges to the ship the cap
 tain saw large crowd on the shore armed
 with swords and maskets. Fearing the con-
 sequences of his illicit bargain he hoisted his sail and swung out to sea. That was Pastor Robinson's second attempt at exile for him self and his flock. He had remained on shore to be the last to embark and was of
 course captured together with such as were
 left there with him.
 That ship soon faded out of sight on the sea. After some months Robinson and the most of those who had been captured on the shore succeeded in escaping, the most of them finding their families in the town of Leyden. Here for this morning we shall leave them, poor in this worlds goods, but rich in faith, and ready for other sacrifices for the sake of religious liberty. The people who had thus escaped were from London.
 THE EVENING DISCOURSE.
 In the evening Dr. Twitehell again took up the same subject and proceeded further with the doings of the Puritans and Pill grims, taking the same text as in the morn ing. There was large congregation present to hear him.
 The sufferers at Scrooby and in other parts